I'm thankful I'm now an atheist, it's the only rational stance to take.

The only thing I wish Alex had touched on more in his efficient treatment of your post is this: Your argument that Hitler relied on "Darwinism" is false. He relied on a "theory" called "Social Darwinism" (by people who had no understanding of the limits of science), which applied some principles of EbNS to cultures in a completely unscientific way. In no way was this "Darwinism" -- whatever that is.

Either you didn't know this, and thus are shown to be willing to argue from ignorance; or you did know this, and are indeed arguing in bad faith, as Alex suspected.

I love it when atheists, who are the shining examples for us all in the use of unadulterated logic, fall into something as elementary as the Post Hoc fallacy.

I love it when people snottily berate others for failing to employ logic and then demonstrate a tiresome blockheadedness with regards to the actual meaning of the fallacies they cite. What is argued here does not fall into this category because supporting arguments for the conclusion that religion was a critical contributing factor to the events listed are referred to here and explored in greater depth elsewhere on the site (no, I'm not going to do your research for you). Your opening leads me to believe that you're either arguing in bad faith or under the impression that the logic behind the elucidation of the "Post Hoc fallacy" [sic] implies that the occurrence of event A before event B DISPROVES the proposition that event A may have contributed to event B.

...just to check: you don't actually think that, do you?

Or when the atheists claim, 'Although there have been many causes for war, I know of no others that can last literally for millennia.' Citations or examples, please? The longest Crusade lasted five years, and the historical lumping together of the Crusades into a homogenous group amount to 200 years; while this is quite a lengthy war, the Hundred Years War between France and Britain lasted, well, a little over a hundred years, not counting the turmoil and skirmishes before and subsequent because, if counted, they undermine my argument.

Fixed it for you. ...Protestants and Catholics have only recently mostly stopped killing each other in Northern Ireland, to name one example. The Franco-German thing that was largely responsible for creating the conditions that lead to World War I was originally rooted in large part in the Protestant-Catholic religious wars.

But you must mean, according to your quote, the skirmishes and lingering hatred that last for millennia. By this, are you referring to the same sorts of hatreds that have taken place (and are taking place) for thousands of years between ethnic groups, for no apparent religious reasons whatsoever? The Jews and Canaanites have been at each others' throats for thousands of years - with religion being present, of course, but with the ethnic hatred swapping religions (Baalism, Islam, etc.) several times.

Right. The disinclination of the ancient Israelites, the various Muslim empires, and modern militants of both faiths to tolerate their neighbors (with whom their major difference is in choice of religion) and leave them in peace clearly has no religious underpinnings. Nope, nothing obviously religious about warfare inspired by a desire to drive "infidels" and "idolators" out of the "holy land"/"promised land." Good point, here.

The Gauls and Romans warred with one another (and hated each others' guts) for hundreds of years.

Religious and quasi-religious doctrine was a major motivator of the Roman Empire's military expansion, as I understand it.

Furthermore, I can cite many persons who went clinically insane or destroyed themselves and others in flagrant ways while their life flew the banner of atheism (hugging horses

Assuming you don't mean this in a fashion analogous to "tree huggers," what's wrong with being affectionate to animals?

shooting their classmates, etc.)

Citation needed. I'm aware of one sorta-incident and a bunch that apologists have twisted, misrepresented, and outright lied about to try to make them look that way.

or point to the brutality implicit in a proposed construct of Darwinian atheism

Assuming you're referring to a proposed social and philosophical system: proposed by who, other than apologists as a strawman?

BUT that wouldn't prove anything in the least, because correspondence doesn't mean causality.

So why mention it?

Atheists of all people should know this. To make those claims would be just as ridiculous as saying that, because Hitler made religion a centrepiece to his regime, religion was the driving cause behind his regime.

Even if Hitler perceived this to be the cause behind his regime (which I think is quite an historical overstatement, convenient for atheists to make, considering all the hyper-modern, post-Enlightenment, Darwinian models that Hitler incorporated into his regime)

And those models would be? I'm aware of this claim being made repeatedly by dishonest apologists but I've never seen it substantiated and have in fact seen it refuted by actual examinations of the statements and writings of the people involved.

, it does not logically follow that a religion is the cause itself.

This sounds suspiciously like a strawman. Please rephrase it in a fashion that is unambiguously consistent with having actually read and comprehended the OP.

I could believe that atheism allows (or tells) me to shoot handicapped people, but that wouldn't prove that atheism is the actual cause

There's no logical reason to infer from the nonexistence of a deity that handicapped people should be killed, whereas the desirability of military conquest of ideological opponents follows straightforwardly from the notion that one's group is in the possession of infallible truth and has been specially chosen by god to rule the (area/country/planet) and eliminate his enemies.

I myself am the actual cause, and my actions and context of the actions would show that I shot handicapped people.

You ARE making a strawman argument. Glad we're on the same page with that, now.

Perhaps atheism was the cause, but even if a hundred people performed similar actions to mine, that wouldn't prove atheism was the cause; perhaps delusional people expression [sic] their delusions through whatever potent channel is at hand.

Perhaps. And perhaps some channels are more potent for channeling certain kinds of delusions. And perhaps religion is one of those channels and "God is on our side and those other guys are his enemies" is one of those delusions.

This is Logic 101; I thought we all understood this crap.

Apparently not.

[Dealt with the closest thing to a functional group in the next paragraph already]

I like the closer on this one: I'd just let those religious nuts have at it, if it weren't for all the innocents in the middle. We should write a ballade or make a musical for all the noble atheists of the world, pious as they are.

I know all these words and I still can't extract a coherent point from this sentence.

It couldn't be that religion - whether true or false in itself - just so happens to be something particularly ripe for the picking in power struggles.

It could be. In fact, it's exactly like that.

...do you not see this as a problem?

Furthermore, I can cite many persons who went clinically insane or destroyed themselves and others in flagrant ways while their life flew the banner of atheism (hugging horses, shooting their classmates, etc.), or point to the brutality implicit in a proposed construct of Darwinian atheism - BUT that wouldn't prove anything in the least, because correspondence doesn't mean causality. Post hoc. Atheists of all people should know this. To make those claims would be just as ridiculous as saying that, because Hitler made religion a centrepiece to his regime, religion was the driving cause behind his regime. Even if Hitler perceived this to be the cause behind his regime (which I think is quite an historical overstatement, convenient for atheists to make, considering all the hyper-modern, post-Enlightenment, Darwinian models that Hitler incorporated into his regime), it does not logically follow that a religion is the cause itself. I could believe that atheism allows (or tells) me to shoot handicapped people, but that wouldn't prove that atheism is the actual cause; I myself am the actual cause, and my actions and context of the actions would show that I shot handicapped people. Perhaps atheism was the cause, but even if a hundred people performed similar actions to mine, that wouldn't prove atheism was the cause; perhaps delusional people expression their delusions through whatever potent channel is at hand. This is Logic 101; I thought we all understood this crap.

Finally, it's amazing to me how many logical considerations are conveniently ignored in this essay. It certainly couldn't be the case that humans may, in fact, have a fetish for violence, toward which they employ anything in arm's length. It couldn't be that religion - whether true or false in itself - just so happens to be something particularly ripe for the picking in power struggles. Let's just point to human beings - who have, for most of their history, been religious beings - and point out how religion coincides with some of the most heinous actions in history.

I like the closer on this one: I'd just let those religious nuts have at it, if it weren't for all the innocents in the middle. We should write a ballade or make a musical for all the noble atheists of the world, pious as they are.

Sorry, but the Nazis were definately atheistic, albeit not necessarily being atheists per se....So to peg the Nazis as Christians is an outright fallacy....In short, Hitler was not exactly your poster-boy atheist, but when it came to religious matters, he definately leaned towards atheism nonetheless.

Most Nazis were Christians. Most Germans were Christians. Some, like Boormann, were pagans. Hitler was born a Catholic and never renounced his faith. Additionally, his speeches are littered with reference to "Providence" or "the Lord", etc. Albert Speer in his Book Inside the Third Reich attests to Hitler's positive refusal to surrender his religion. And while the Nazis made cynical use of religion on occasion, the fact that the vast majority of Germans bought into this trick says something damning in itself about religion, don't you think?

For deeper insight into these matters, see William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Tolan'ds biography Hitler, and Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners [for insight into the religiosity of the "average" German].